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Raided for running a Tor exit - Accepting donations for legal expenses
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Source?
There really isn't.
There are other anonymizing networks/protocols -- like i2p and Freenet -- and ones specifically for filesharing, like WASTE.
And, of course, there's still the old vanilla standbys like Gnutella(2) and eDonkey that have never really gone away, just seen less use.
And Usenet! Indeed, back in '08, ISPs dropped including Usenet access in their plans because, hey, guess what, child pornography on 'em. Who'd have thought that we'd still be dealing with the problem if, as AG Cuomo said, these groups were such major sources?
In 2014 so far, the child pornography convictions pressers from the FBI have cited peer-to-peer networks, traditional policework, social media, standalone sites, or filesharing websites. Yes, there was the huge takedown of Freedom Hosting in '13, that hopefully results in a lot of convictions from the content it was hosting; and, yes, these convictions may indeed be low-hanging fruit. But there's clearly some other stuff out there beyond Tor.
There's a lot of godawful content on Tor, but none of it goes away if you pull the plug -- these people move on to the next, whether it be something anonymized like i2p or something hidden on the wider internet, like the Russian carder forums that Brian Krebs regularly delves around in. There's a whole hell of a lot of other stuff outside of Tor.
To say with a straight face that the production or dissemination of any of the illegal content that Tor plays host to -- be it drugs, child pornography, or something of the kind -- would actually be dealt a major blow by magically disappearing the service is to be capable of some major self-delusion.
To clutch your pearls and act as though stating and acknowledging this is tantamount to clicking the Upload button on these acts is laughable; to have a conviction against you hinge on such statements is unfortunate.
Any government blow against Tor -- actual or theoretical -- would provide only fodder for self-congratulatory political ads as the cockroaches scurry away elsewhere.
Law enforcement must do as it always has: traditional policework. They managed to take down Freedom Hosting, proving Tor isn't impenetrable. It just takes a little more work to get the real bad guys.
A lot of fun read in one of those sources:
I mean, come on, if they can why didnt they do it before? That is the complicity and the real aiding and abetting they were benefiting directly too from the traffic and money from hosting those. Is there any doubt they acted in collusion with the criminals? No, because by own admission in a public release:
1. They agreed to purge their servers of child porn websites, like that was in need of their agreement, the law is somewhat non-compulsory if you are a big company;
2. They cannot claim they did not know where it is or couldnt remove it, because they say now will remove it so they did know how and where.
So, those providers knew about the issue as well as who is doing what and tolerated it while getting money from the criminals, no indictment, no sentencing.
William provided a free service from his own money, he could have not known who did what, heck, even if they did it, only that it might have happened and he admitted this, therefore he is destroyed.
Yet, people still claim this has nothing to do with the police state and their corporate sponsors, just child protection.
Very grandiose. When it comes down to it, it's all dressing for choice and intent.
Blindly trusting total strangers and disseminating their information of choice (illegal or not) and arguing that's it's absolutely morally right is delusional. Tor is just part of the mechanism in question here, that allows the requests to be done anonymously. Circles....
http://www.thelocal.at/20140705/internet-relay-op-convicted-of-child-porn-offenses
http://www.thelocal.de/20140704/nsa-hacking-spying-privacy-snowden
The attacks multiply, they cannot outlaw privacy yet, so they are hacking I am moving and reinstalling my nodes all the time while keeping the VMs for exits 100% clean, just bare os and Tor. One VM, one usage, love virtualization
No good deed providing a service goes unpunished. I hope everything works out in the end for you.
I dont think that was the purpose, only to scare other operators because hacking exit nodes is a full time job and does not even give the IPs of the "enemy of state". They cannot outlaw tor and privacy because no real court of law will take this argument, something can be abused therefore it is illegal, police must find the abusers, the same way it is done in gun abuse or prescription drug abuse. Sure, privacy and the need for a warrant to search homes for illegal guns, for example is a hindrance, yet nobody sees police to push an unconstitutional law for warrantless home searches, letter opening, car search, etc.
interesting and well balanced article here:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2452320/tor-exit-node-operator-convicted-of-abetting-spread-of-child-porn.html
Yes, that indeed sums it up, but nobody can deny that Tor operators in Austria are scared now and many probably dropped exits at least. Since the case did not help victims one bit, nor did it prevent anything, nor was william convicted for hosting child porn or profiting from it, merely on one (technical) opinion, it is safe to be assumed it was run against anonymity, not against child porn.
Just to illustrate one of the vast choices for criminals to hide:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/02/sydney_wallowing_in_cesspit_of_wifi_obsolescence/
Criminalizing anonymity and Tor, will not mean cybercrime will stop, it will actually be helped because the police and the justice system will have a whole new "crime" to deal with, chasing Tor operators and people trying to remain anonymous instead of real criminals.